[Chapter-delegates] Pacific Islands Regional Advisor bannedfrom major World IT Meeting

Tue Nov 1 22:46:33 PST 2005

Fred and Members on this list,

What we need to see are more vocal protests by a wider range of
people/organisations.

>From what our Rep. at the meeting reported back, there were a
significant number who 
experienced similar disenfranchisement. We need them to speak up as well
and I hope
the members in these lists can assist with that, as ultimately this will
affect us and
the work we do.

Any publicity you can garner on this issue will be much appreciated,
including forwarding
to your media contacts, and whatever other reasonable method you see
fit.

I consider the treatment dished out medieval in nature and hope that
this is not a sign
of what the future holds for the Internet, and for us.....

Regards,
RAJNESH.

-----Original Message-----
From: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org
[mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Baker
Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2005 5:31 PM
To: Franck Martin
Cc: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org; Pacific Islands Chapter of ISOC
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Pacific Islands Regional Advisor
bannedfrom major World IT Meeting

Thanks for the heads-up. The fact is that this has been happening to  
all of our non-governmental participants, including ISOC HQ. That  
doesn't make it less of a problem, but it means that there are very  
fundamental issues here.

I like and support Mr Singh's comment in the closing paragraph.  
Fundamentally, that's why ISOC is not convinced that a governmental  
oversight function (US or otherwise) is a great idea. The model being  
displayed in WSIS smells like Mercantilism, not openness.

On Nov 1, 2005, at 9:11 PM, Franck Martin wrote:

> PICISOC MEDIA RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Pacific Islands Regional Advisor banned from major World IT Meeting
>
> At a preliminary meeting in Geneva preparing for the World Summit on 
> the Information Society (WSIS) meeting next month, the Pacific Islands

> Regional Advisor on this major global initiative was last week 
> excluded from observing proceedings.
>
> "Two incidents this week have dampened spirit of civil society and 
> private sector representatives," the advisor, Ms 'Apisake Soakai, told

> members of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society
> (PICISOC) in an e-mail from Geneva last Tuesday.
>
> "On Monday morning before session started members from the private 
> sector were told to leave the room. On Tuesday afternoon civil society

> representatives were also told to leave the room because the 
> negotiation session was a private meeting only for government 
> delegations," Ms Soakai said.
>
> "These incidents were embarrasing, humiliating and discouraging for 
> individuals concerned, not to mention the organisation they 
> represented," Ms Soaki said.
>
> PICISOC explained that sending Ms Sokai to represent the Region at a 
> lead-up meeting to the major WSIS summit was a very effective use of 
> scarce finances as her reports were being widely circulated and 
> studied by governments, the developing Pacific IT industry, and many 
> NGOs.
>
> Her exclusion denied the Pacific valuable information needed to 
> prepare for the looming WSIS summit in Tunis in November, 2005.
>
> PICISOC Chair Rajnesh Singh said that excluding Ms Sokai and other 
> civil society representatives, particularly those from developing 
> regions, from WSIS meetings was outrageous and a denial of the 
> principles of transparency and good governance the WSIS process is 
> supposed to facilitate.
>
> "The WSIS and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the 
> organiser, has claimed multi-stakeholder approach and transparency, 
> but who are we kidding?" Mr Singh said.
>
> "We are not requesting to be able intervene at all sessions but at 
> least to be able to know what is happening in a free and transparent 
> process so that government delegations are fully briefed for the WSIS 
> Tunis meeting.
>
> "Is this the model that is been created for the 'Internet Forum' that 
> the ITU through the WSIS process is trying desperately to promote?" Mr

> Singh said.
>
> "The Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society (PICISOC) 
> certainly do not support any model where openness, transparency and 
> good governance is not entrenched in its charter," Mr Singh said.
>
> FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT -
>
> Rajnesh Singh, PICISOC Chairman, rajnesh.singh at gmail.com 
> <mailto:rajnesh.singh at gmail.com>
>
> Franck Martin, PICISOC Vice Chairman, franck.martin at gmail.com 
> <mailto:franck.martin at gmail.com> skype.com <http://skype.com>: 
> franckhlmartin
>
> BACKGROUND -
>
> About PICISOC
> PICISOC is an organisation encompassing 22 Pacific Islands Countries 
> and Territories with a goal to promote "Internet for Everyone". As 
> such, the board reflects this philosophy with people from 5 different 
> countries and from the government and private sector.
>
> PICISOC has over 350 individual members in the Pacific Islands 
> representing also the diversity of this geographical area.
>
> PICISOC web site is located at http://www.picisoc.org and is 
> affiliated to the Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) which is the 
> organisation in charge of the Public Internet Registry (.org domain 
> names), which also provides support and a legal framework to the 
> Internet Engineering Task Force (http://www.ietf.org), the 
> organisation in charge of making open Internet Standards.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chapter-delegates mailing list Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates

--------------------------------------------------------------
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already  
tomorrow in Australia." (Charles Schulz )

_______________________________________________
Chapter-delegates mailing list Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates